Music: Favorable outlook for up-and-coming Vista Kicks

By Jay N. Miller/For The Patriot Ledger

Thursday

Feb 22, 2018 at 10:47 AM

Vista Kicks is the hot young California rock band with fresh and enticing music based on their shared love of retro sounds.

Their debut album came out last year, "Booty Shakers Ball," and their national tour supporting that record is swinging through the area next week, when Vista Kicks headline the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge on Wednesday night.

We caught up with Vista Kicks singer Derek Thomas as the band was preparing for a show in Wichita this week, and mentioned that the influences cited in their band biography - The Beatles, AC/DC, The Bee Gees, Michael Jackson, and Black Sabbath - all seemed to ring true to one degree or another, but we had also heard a lot that reminded us of Cheap Trick, for its power pop delivered with delightful melodic content and smooth vocals.

"Oh yeah, sure we loved Cheap Trick too," said Thomas, "and we all have huge record collections. We like a lot of old school rock music, but we also liked a lot of contemporary sounds too, from Alabama Shakes to hip-hop, indie rock and all of it."

The four members of Vista Kicks all grew up together in the small Sacramento suburb of Roseville, California, where they were all neighbors. Vista Kicks includes Thomas on vocals, Sam Plecker on guitar, Trevor Sutton on bass, and Nolan LeVine on drums. They decided early on that they wanted to form a band, but it wasn't until they were teenagers that they actually began going out and playing shows. Despite loving all that retro rock, their initial forays were somewhat different.

"We started as a jazz band doing Frank Sinatra tunes, in high school," said Thomas. "The main thing was that my voice hadn't developed yet, so it was somehow easier for me to sing Sinatra. That smooth, lower end type vocal came naturally to me, and I couldn't hit the high end as well, so that's why we began concentrating on Sinatra. We'd go to nearby Folsom - as in 'Folsom Prison Blues' - and put a jar out and sing on the streets for tips. We got to be pretty good at that, and got to play cafes, and bookstores, even weddings."

When high school ended the four young musicians went their separate ways, to four different schools. But eventually they finished college and began tossing around ideas for a new band.

"We had taken a break for college," Thomas explained," and when we got back together we wanted to do our own music. We had been making money doing the jazz, but we didn't want to not keep growing. If you are a cover band you can make money pretty easily, but there's a cap to how much. We were at that threshold of wanting to go our own way. If you make original music, you'll probably make almost no money for a long time, but if you make it the rewards are so much better."

One seminal moment came when the reunited band recorded a single, "Make It Real," an appealing rock 'n' soul number that manages to be hot and sensual, yet also smooth, and with a terrific guitar sound. When that single managed to garner more than two million streams on Spotify, Vista Kicks knew they were on to something. Before long they were recording the EP "Chasing Waves" in 2016, and all that little disc did was earn millions more Spotify streams and YouTube views. To this point the band is credited with more than five million Spotify streams and 3.2 million YouTube views.

"Our parents have been great," said Thomas. "They all came down and catered our studio for the two weeks we were making 'Chasing Waves,' making all our favorite foods. The breakthrough, when it came, was amazing. We had all been living in the same house, and we started getting chased by labels. We decided to move to Los Angeles, and began thinking 'Why do need a label?' We were making enough off our shows, if we could keep making records we figured we could continue to get more people to come to our concerts. Signing with a label, taking, say, a $100,000 advance for 75 percent of your future earnings, is just a bad business deal by the time you pay them back."

Among the attention they began receiving, Vista Kicks started to get help and studio advice from Tommy Lee, and then Keith Nelson of the band Buckcherry. But ultimately they did the debut album all by themselves, in their home studio, with Plecker producing.

"The LP is the first one we have done ourselves, with no outside help," said Thomas. "Before that we had worked with some good people ... but we realized the whole process was taking too much money. We believed we could do it ourselves, so we did."

The debut album has some memorable tunes, like "Fight the War," with its basic rock quartet sound and those classic guitar sounds that evoke the British Invasion. The song's theme is more about tenacity, and the stubborn perseverance needed to succeed, in any field, like music perhaps.

"That song 'Fight the War' was supposed to be on our first EP," Thomas noted. "I always liked it, but we shot it down for that first EP. When we were making this album we re-assessed it, and decided we all liked it, and its theme, and brought it back to life."

"Gotta Get Away," on the other hand, is smooth soul with a dance club groove, a clear descendant of the band's Bee Gees and Michael Jackson influences, but also a nod to classic rhythm and blues.

"We love Curtis Mayfield," Thomas said of the tune, "and we also love Michael Jackson and Prince, and I suppose they're all present in our music. But that kind of sound is why we called the album 'Booty Shakers Ball.' We mean for this music to get you up and dancing and having a good time."

"Monkey Business" is the tune the band wondered about, whether people would find it joyful or polarizing. It's a bracing concoction that could be Rolling Stones-meet-Red Hot Chili Peppers, or possibly the 1960s Zombies jamming with David Bowie, a mix of garage rock and gritty r&b. Thomas, who'd been chuckling as we recounted our impressions, agreed it could be all those things and more.

"When we first wrote it, our working title was 'No Diddley,' " he said. "It's meant as a sort of view of the Don Juan persona - and I'm not that person. But it's kind of meant to show a bad-ass, sexual kind of character. It doesn't represent us, but it's just a cool little nod to a lot of our retro influences."

While all those downloads don't necessarily make musicians rich, they do certainly help pack the concerts, and Vista Kicks doesn't regret not having a label. They love their D-I-Y method.

"Being able to produce our own records has been huge for us," said Thomas. "We just made another, 17-song album in January, and it'll be out in July. We will play a few of those new tunes on this tour, but since we never really had time to tour 'Booty Shakers Ball' yet, this is our first chance to really tour on that one. But people come out to the shows and are singing our songs back to us, which is really thrilling. Once you have the following, why do you need anyone to say yes or no to what you want to do? That's why we have the autonomy and we love it."

"There's an old story about Ben Franklin, greeting investors for one of his projects," Thomas added. "Every day they'd come to his home and he'd be making a bowl of oatmeal. They told him that was awful, he could afford much better dining. Ben told them, 'I like my oatmeal, and it's all I want, so I'm fine.' That's us; we don't need much, we can make a record for very little, and that's a huge advantage."

LOCAL STOPS: Big night on the South Shore, with songsmith Jay Psaros at Norwell Church Hill Coffeehouse; rocker Munk Duane playing solo at The Rivershed in Scituate; and those garage-rocking lifers Bald Walter heating up The Next Page in Weymouth. Saturday catch jazz star Lazslo Gardony's gorgeous piano stylings at The Spire Center in Plymouth; or relive the Disco Era with Booty Vortex at the C-Note in Hull. Monday night r&b princess Kelela is worth a trip to Royale in Boston.